1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication terminal, a power supply management system of the same, and a charging method at the time of purchasing a cell reservoir.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a fuel cell has been actively researched and developed for converting chemical energy having fuel such as hydrogen, hydrocarbon or alcohol into electrical energy through an electrochemical reaction. This is because the fuel cell can convert the fuel into electrical energy directly and thus can be composed of an electricity generating device with high efficiency and low environmental pollution.
In addition, a direct methanol fuel cell (hereinafter, referred to as ‘DMFC’) has attracted public attention in which the liquid fuel at room temperature is not deformed by hydrogen gas and is directly oxidized in a cell electrode, and electrical energy is extracted (for example, see JP-A-2004-265787). This is because the DMFC can be easily made a small-size, can be operated at a relatively low temperature (40 to 60° C.), can generate electricity as long as liquid fuel such as methanol is continuously supplied, and can achieve high output. In addition, since the DMFC allows information processing devices such as a mobile personal computer (PC) and a mobile device such as a cellular phone to be driven for a long time, and it is anticipated that it will be substituted as a storage cell according to the related art.
As well known, an electromotive unit of the DMFC has a structure in which a plurality of cells each composed of an anode electrode and a cathode electrode with an electrolyte film interposed therebetween are laminated. Here, a methanol aqueous solution used as fuel is supplied to the anode electrode side and air (oxygen) is supplied to the cathode electrode side, so that electricity is generated.
In addition, in order to stably perform the electricity generation at the electromotive unit, in addition to the base structure, devices of a control system, a piping system, and an exhaust system, a warning device, or the like, which will be described in more details below, are disposed, and a system of the fuel cell is formed. A fuel cartridge in which high-concentrated methanol raw fuel becoming the electromotive fuel is filled is attached to the fuel cell so as to be attachable and detachable.
In recent years, a technology has been suggested in which in the fuel cell system including the fuel cartridge, data related to the type of used fuel, the amount of used fuel or a manufacturer, and various information, such as information related to commercial transaction, are extracted (for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,713,201). In addition, the fuel cell has been examined for system informationization or advancing capable of achieving information exchange as well as power supply with respect to a portable device to which the fuel cell is attached.
In addition to the DMFC suitable for the portable device, as the fuel cell, various fuel cells, such as a polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) in which an ion exchanging resin film using oxygen as fuel is constructed as an electrolyte, have been suggested.
However, generally, the fuel used in the fuel cell is a harmful material and a hazardous material. For this reason, for example, the high-concentrated methanol raw fuel filled in the fuel reservoir (fuel cartridge) of the fuel cell is currently set to have a reference of 200 ppm or less every 8 hours per day as an occupational health exposure limit. However, when the fuel reservoir is commonly used on a daily basis, the regulation becomes strict in order to prevent chronic poisoning. There are many cases that people are affected even at 30 ppm. Currently, there has been reported that exposure is several tens of ppm in the atmosphere of cities. Therefore, there is a high possibility that in the future, a regulation exposure limit will be set at several ppm.
In addition, it is necessary that a safety measure against the harmful material/hazardous material be provided in the fuel reservoir. Even though a large amount of the fuel reservoirs are sold on the market as disposable ampules, it is difficult that they are manufactured at a low cost, and it is anticipated that they will become high-priced due to the added value of utilizing the exchange of information. In addition, if the fuel reservoir becomes too expensive to make disposal ampules, it becomes difficult for the portable DMFC to be widely used.
Accordingly, a method has been suggested to solve the above-mentioned problems. One method is that the fuel cartridge is charged to other people other than a user of the fuel cell or a purchaser of the fuel reservoir. There is an effective system in which for the subject the fuel cell of the user consumes a power, for example, the contents that are executed in the communication terminal by the user and are distributed through the communication infrastructure including the internet, the content provider is charged with the expenses. This system is suitable for an information processing device like a communication terminal connected to the communication infrastructure such as the network.
However, in the communication terminal to which the power is supplied from the fuel cell, there is no mechanism that the execution of various contents becoming the subject of the power consumption is collated and associated with the fuel cell or the fuel reservoir used in the communication terminal. For this reason, there is a large problem in that the content provider, the communication carrier, and the fuel reservoir manufacturer do not cooperate with each other, and a service such as division of the expenses of the fuel reservoir or the profit division is not performed.
Accordingly, the invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems and it is an object of the invention to promote fast wide use of a fuel cell and a fuel reservoir thereof which can manufacture the fuel reservoir of the fuel cell at a low cost and can be suitable for a power supply of a mobile device. Further, it is another object of the invention to provide a communication terminal which can be widely used, a power supply management system thereof, and a charging method at the time of purchasing the fuel reservoir.